


So Ever Unbegun

by jasonptodd



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, First Kiss, M/M, POV Second Person, Self Harm, Spoilers, maybe later on i do not know where my head wants to go with this, not actual slash, seriously if you haven't seen aou don't read chapter 8, this is the weirdest thing ive ever written, well aside from that story in third grade where i killed off a squirrel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1677605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasonptodd/pseuds/jasonptodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You search for a time that is too long to measure (then again, everything that is more than an hour is immeasurable to you) but you do not find enough, never enough, you know his height his weight his age his face the problem is you do not understand James Buchanan Barnes you only understand parts of him and it is not enough for you.<br/>--<br/>[A pattern-ish take on the Winter Soldier rediscovering emotions.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_I fought for three reasons. I can't remember what they were. The first reason gets you in, and the reason when you are in is staying alive. I won't know the reason they find afterwards, but it will be a very good one for why it was fought. I'm sure I'll be glad._

 

I

 

Target acquired.

Ready.

Aim.

Hit.

The file said: Genetically enhanced – 6 ft 0.5 in – 180 lbs

The file did not say: a face you have seen before, in your dreams (but you do not dream) – a shoulder you have touched before (but not with your metal hand – with what, then?) – eyes that have looked at you before (but you have not met this man)

_I knew him._

They do not listen; you hit; they do not tell you; you hit again.

_I need you to do it one more time._

A voice, like you are underwater – muffled, quiet, barely audible.

_But I knew him._

Suddenly your stomach curls up, you bite your lip but there is something that does not go away, deep, deep inside your ribs, or below, you cannot locate it (but you can always locate wounds). It feels hot – but it is not a burn. Feels heavy – but it is not a bullet. You once knew the word for this, a pain that is not caused by a physical wound (but you are purely physical), it burns throughout your heart and ribs and throat and this cannot be because you failed your mission you do not feel you do not feel you do not feel this is strange because you want to do something want to hit them want to kill them want to slice their throats want to break their necks want to –

 

_Want?_

You need them to tell you. If they will not, you will hit again – why?

 

This is the first time: Anger.

 

II

 

Mission report. Second attempt.

_I'm not gonna fight you._

You do not listen, the man speaks but it is not relevant for completing the mission.

Ready.

Aim.

Hit.

(Why not shoot why not strangle why not break)

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes_

Your insides flare up, again: no physical pain, but _pain_ nonetheless and you do not understand (it does not matter you do not need to understand to complete the mission). Your insides flare up and burn you from inside.

_and you're my friend_

This word has no meaning you wonder what it could mean

_friend_

_friend_

You remember meaning does not matter (mission matters).

_You're my mission._

The man does not stop talking but it is not relevant for completing the mission.

Completing the mission.

Mission.

_Then finish it_

Yes.

No, wait.

Not relevant for completing the mission

_'Cause I'm with you – 'til the end of the line_

Meaning does not matter mission matters but –

There is meaning. Your insides clench turn up throw up and freeze themselves, your face moves in unknown ways, your hand stops mid-move. There is meaning but you still do not understand you cannot understand what lies behind words because you do not know the words but for once you want to.

 

This is the first time: Bitterness.

 

III

 

You leave leave leave need to get out need to get back, but the man's words (target's words) ring in your ears, and there is no mission anymore so this is your mission. Find out the meaning behind the words. You remember you read the file and it said _known as Captain America New York called the Avengers linked to Anthony Stark Natasha Romanoff_ so you start there: _Smithsonian Captain America children 6$ adults 12$ see the new exhibition interactive –_ you shut off.

You stand in front of the wall that repeats the name over and over again, the name he said: J _ames Buchanan Barnes_ , which does not tell you anything, because you have never read the file of anyone called _James Buchanan Barnes_ so you read a wall about him instead.

1917 – 1944, meaningless numbers swish together in your head and meaningless names accompany them in a white blank confusion. This is the closest to a file you have read in the past weeks (weeks, you have never been up for weeks, weeks are a useless concept, time is a useless concept, what matters is: target ready aim shoot), and you take in the information which is not even a familiar process it is muscle memory, you take in whatever they give you, you remember, you find the target, you shoot, you forget (they make you forget).

But then sudden unfamiliarity: The information is not enough. You read the wall until you have memorized every word, every letter, every wrinkle and spot on the face of a man who does not resemble any file you have read ( _Bucky_ ). But still, still, still you need to know more. The wall tells you useless propaganda, _best friend_ , _soldier_ , _went missing in action_ , _sergeant_ , but it does not tell you what James Buchanan Barnes thought, wished, desired, missed, remembered, forgot, laughed about, hated, liked, loved ( _loved?_ ). You know this is not tactical interest because James Buchanan Barnes is dead. He is not your mission.

You know you do not need this information to complete the mission. You want to know it, though. And something is burning right under your skin, you can pinpoint exactly where the burn comes from (but you have no idea why it is there), the wall is not enough you search the museum the entire museum you break into the archive but do not find anything either an attendant asks you _sorry sir you have to leave this is not part of the exhibition_ you strangle him and wonder why you let him finish the sentence.

You search for a time that is too long to measure (then again, everything that is more than an hour is immeasurable to you) but you do not find enough, never enough, you know his height his weight his age his face the problem is you do not understand _James Buchanan Barnes_ you only understand parts of him and it is not enough for you.

 

This is the first time: Curiosity.

 

IV

 

You run. You do not know from who or what, but you flee, cross border after border until you come to countries whose native languages you do not understand (it's soothing after a while, not having to take all the information in). He comes close, for some reason you want him to.

You never let him catch you, you might be a deserter but the word deserter implies the soldier past, and you cannot forget your past. It is imprinted into your brain and your body and your insides. Sometimes you wish you could tear it out, could tear your stomach open and pull it out until there is nothing left and you are empty and the shell you sometimes feel you have become a long time ago anyways. Other times you rub and scratch your flesh hand until the blood starts flowing and does not stop until the ground is stained and colored in too much and not enough, and you realize it will never be red enough.

So you let it heal, but days – nights – hours later you scratch it up again. You pass mirrors, sometimes and now you start looking at them. Your body is scarred, but your insides are worse.

There are times when you want to put a bullet in your brain because you need to feel clean. There are times when you want to scratch up your body and bleed to death because you want to be as dirty as you are. There are times when you want to swallow up the world and throw it up again because it might finally be enough. There are times when you remember and your brain implodes and leaves back a dark hole which you want to retreat to but cannot. There are times when you want to move a finger and cannot when your eyes and ears and skin are overloaded with sensation and you are unable to respond to it. There are times when you scream for hours, and times you do not make a sound for days. Time passes, but it only gets worse. You think that this is better than staying the same, but you are not sure (are never sure: you are the only one participating in this exchange of thoughts and images, and nobody says _right_ or _wrong_ so how are you supposed to). You want to give in and let him capture you, but you cannot. You break down in back alleys and on streets and in cheap motels and in the woods and everywhere you run to because the one thing you cannot run from is: you.

 

This is the first time: Despair.


	2. Chapter 2

V

 

And after a while you accept that while he might finally stop following you, you can never stop chasing after yourself – whatever you once were. You take up smoking for no reason (for one reason: after weeks, your body starts craving it and you _feel_ it, _feel_ your body screaming after it and you _hear_ it and you give it what it wants and it feels wrong at first so you keep doing it; crashing boundaries as you go, devastating countries and peoples with a mere glimpse).

He does not stop following you. Is always there, a few steps behind, sometimes falls back, he even disappears for a few weeks three or four times, and you hear he is in Sokovia, and you find out the other ones are with him too, but you do not pursue this (it is not your mission anymore).

Sokovia rings a faint memory, though.

Someone -

 

A year passes (in your mind).

You check in, check out, in numerous motels around the world; sleep out in deserted areas where no man has set foot into in decades; take your money on the go in crowded places you leave as fast as possible you hate the voices of the people hate their smell their laugh their sounds their _being_.

More often than not, the world becomes white and you roll up in an unsafe space and close your eyes until lightning flashes before your eyes.

And he does not stop following you.

And you let him come closer.

(If someone asked you why you do not kill him, you –

Probably would twist their neck and take their money and cigarettes.

But no one ever asks.)

Here's a month that passes, there was once a difference between something called summer and something called winter, but not here in –

Australia Japan South Korea China Russia Ukraine Romania Bulgaria Greece Turkey Iraq Israel

 

That's where you stop.

 

On a crowded street, with people crying and screaming, you could easily take all their money (they don't care anymore) and the children dying, a boy telling you to go somewhere safe, please – safe? – and you remember he is less than a day behind you, in fact less than an hour, in fact – you can stop running.

 

This is the first time: Exhaustion.

 

VI

 

He does not see you, at first. Is too busy holding a child and telling it not to worry he is here, letting it rest its head against his shoulder and he pushes it past a wall into a back alley, where they are not the perfect target. You have to move in order to survive, the grenades and snipers are coming closer and the explosions will rip you apart, you know that, you have seen it too often.

What, though, you think, what if this was an option?

The child is gone all of a sudden, maybe you just have the wrong angle to see it, but then you know too well he put it somewhere (momentarily) safe, and he comes out of the alley, and he looks relieved maybe the child has stopped crying after all and he will finally be –

A grenade flying towards him and he spots you and his eyes grow wide and he has found you and you have found him and in the split second that remains you jump and push and the grenade hits right into the wall you're pushing him against and the explosion hits right into your back, you stumble and fall with him and you try to breathe as the pressure wave rolls over your heads and for a moment you do not know whether you are on fire and he is right under you but you do not know if he is breathing either for all you know you could both be dead what if you both were dead what if would it mean you would be dead together or would it just be black for each of you what would it mean if there was a road you would travel, what would it mean if you went his direction after he has gone yours for so many days, what would it mean if you were dead and he was not, and the worst: what would it mean if he was dead and you were not –

 

This is the first time: Fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the late update - i went to the states for a month and now i've finally got time for writing again! feedback is extremely appreciated; thank you so so much for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

VII

 

Fear overcoming your senses, so you cannot hear the grenades exploding anymore; cannot listen to the people whining and crying; cannot see the smoke lying over the city and making it impossible to find a way to escape; all you feel is his body heavy on your side, his heat radiating all too fiercely, and you burn, burn, burn through the ground; and your head pounds on and on all the possibilities of him being gone, gone, gone away: were you sober and awake and alive, you would find it ironic how just in that moment you decide to save him he goes away, doesn't move except for the shaking that the ground induces into you both; how it takes you exactly the amount of time to see clearly that it took him to – die, maybe, superhuman or not: he is _hurt_ and he is _dying_ and you have been here before, but last time you knew he would not die because it was you who hurt him. In any case, you are not sober – instead your mind is drunk and in a haze of all the stimulus around you, killing off any rational thought before it can be touched, even – you are not awake, rather in a dream world where the sounds are not as harsh and loud as in reality (which you know: you've been to war, and never came back) – you would even go so far as to say, you are not alive (because only what can die can live) –

Your thoughts never stop, it's a curse. You wish they would get themselves together and form words, sentences, _something_ in any language you could understand –

Another grenade hits the wall you lean against, covering his body with yours, and this one's just a few meters back. If you don't get out now, you both will get killed, no matter how good you shield him.

You push back, getting up as you pull him up, too, and realize your leg must be broken; the pain is hardly there, though. You carry him with you, half tripping, half holding yourself against the wall and you do not know whether another grenade will hit, and everything in your body fights against you, wants to turn around and secure your position, but that will mean letting him fall, and you will not do that so you bite up your lower lip until you taste blood – but that might also be from the wounds you've gained before – and carry him on, on, on, to the next street and to the one after that and through alleys and broken windows and deserted houses and all the time you breathe in the black smoke that clouds your brain and your vision, making it impossible to think – you just know you have to keep moving.

And then your leg gives in and you break down and know it is physically impossible to do another step and his body falls down against you; and you beg him to forgive you, mumble, whisper, shout into his ear as the gunshots come closer and everything tumbles down, and you beg him beg him beg him because it is your fault he went here and it is your fault he started following you and it is your fault he is covered in red red blood and he does not stop bleeding and _please don't die I'm sorry I'm sorry_ (because you are, you really are, you are so so so sorry and you would give anything to make him breathe and heal again, _anything_ at all) –

 

This is the first time: Guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short chapter; i'll try to update as fast as possible. not sure if i've even got a plot line going on. thank you for reading though. i hope you have a super nice day *throws confetti* :)


	4. Chapter 4

VIII

 

So you are still alive which is improbable but true.

The world has turned yellow and grey: the color of houses burying children and lovers. With sprinkles of red; a painting you could name if only you had ever seen paintings in your life.

He did, you are sure. He has seen artists' works, has viewed them as good or bad (two terms alien to you), has wondered about their structure, marveled at the use of perspective and color blocks, admired the perfect effort that went into them. Has talked about them during lunch when he ate his favorite dish, whatever it is. Has gesticulated and laughed and formed words and sentences and touched others and kissed and held and perceived and acted and moved and has _been_.

You're jealous, somehow. That he got to live a life. Half a life, at least. You wonder what it is like, being shaped by your past, seeing the imprints someone else left on you. New: this is all you are. White noise. You don't exist as pure matter, but only as a thought, which makes it easy to wipe you away, every day anew. You are the dream people don't remember when waking up. You are the blood cleaned up after a fight. You are the ultimate nonexistence, a black hole swallowing up the matter and time around you. He: is brightness. Which might explain just why he pains your eyes so much. And his brightness is dying away, you can grasp it with your fingers with which you keep stroking his face, checking his pulse obsessive obsessive obsessive repeat repeat repeat _repeat_ until all the blood is washed away by the bombs that, yes, _wipe_ the city.

You lean back against the wall, close your eyes, and wait to die.

 

(A short intermission from the outer universe, as opposed to the inner universe that makes up your brain.

If you had been alive at a certain point in time, you could have seen him trying to join you in death, which he obviously would not have done if you had been alive at this certain point in time.

So, redo: If you had been less than dead, but not quite alive, you could have seen him trying to join you in death. If you had seen this, you would laugh at this situation right now which reverses your roles. It's a drama, in truth, with the maddest places on earth being your stage. As both of you stage your death over and over again, nobody can keep up. History is only what is written down, and right now, in the middle of a town that has a Hebrew, an Arabic, a Russian and an English name – all of which float through your brain at the same time, giving you an overstimulus –, nobody bothers to write down the story of the man with the metal arm, holding another man against a wall and crying against his face.

And you cannot write it down because you do not remember the story of your life and neither do you remember his. And he cannot write it down, because, well, he is dying right now.

What this intermission is trying to avoid, obviously, is discussing what happens _afterwards_. Because something has to happen. The tales of great heroes never end unwritten. If he died here, with nobody but you seeing it, and you died, too, this story would not have an end. Instead, it would stretch out into infinity where no human being could perceive what it develops to be.

But, wait: you are no human being. You are the ultimate nonexistence, and as such, you cannot be destroyed.)

 

You are the ultimate nonexistence, and as such, you cannot be destroyed. The thought is there, all of a sudden, piercing your brain so you cry out sharp and loud. You cannot be destroyed. You cry louder. _You cannot be destroyed._ You scream.

 

And, because miracles happen in heroic stories, just then, an existence reaches out to you. You move a finger, which might not be enough, but your knuckles are broken, and all of a sudden your legs send hard pain into your brain (you would color it red, probably), and so does your stomach – and so do your lungs (you would color this pain white if you could distinguish colors) – and then, everything goes blurred, but you keep him in your arms, keep him keep him keep him because your arms are safer than – nothing, in fact, but _you_ are safer when holding him so you _don't let go_.

 

_let him go –_

_please let him free please we need to_

_medical assistance_

_sorry, let me_

_he is hurt_

_there's another one here_

_can't feel his pulse –_

_can you hear me?_

 

_can you hear me?_

 

This is the first time: Hollowness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so WEIRD and i'm so sorry. if you read this and want to give me feedback of whatever kind, i will be forever grateful. i love you all for putting up with my work! wow! you're a+!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phoenix from the ashes.

IX

 

Seven months pass. You realize you are changing. Your body is changing, and your mind is trying to steady it but fails.

You hate it. Scratch up your arm and your back and your stomach, sometimes you sneak into hospitals you see people being opened up and you wonder whether you would be the same inside. If someone cut you up. More than once you try. More than once you fail. You think it is because something inside you does not want to be discovered, something that eats its way through your flesh until finally you are no more than a dead body standing in the middle of a battlefield the second before it drops.

 

(You assume this has happened a long time ago.)

 

You want to change because changing means to be no longer what you are now.

 

After Israel, you disappear again. He does not. Is painfully obvious, pursuing the idea that you could be captured by him. Caught. Strapped to a bed, made whatever he wants you to be.

You are horrified, so much that one day you let him come as close as one day behind you, and then at night you crawl back and lose your mind over him sleeping in the half of a house which has not been bombed yet, and it’s getting colder, even here, even at the end of all humanity.

 

You go to Moscow where you try to locate old connections. Nearly all of them have failed in making themselves untraceable.

You kill them all, so he knows where to go. You listen to their screams and sometimes, you think you do not know how they use their voice.

 

And one day you try to talk.

 

            _to talk (v.): the act of tearing at one’s vocal cords until they are ripped to shreds_

You have seen parts of your file, not enough to make out an existence (this is not surprising: you are non-existent, and as such, cannot be destroyed). Enough to find an old man in a cold, tiny flat just outside of Moscow who must have been involved in the making of the monster you are. The man is called Alexei Chistyakov, and was born on the 9th November 1935. He gets up at 0430, makes a cup of coffee, plays two matches of chess with himself, proceeds to read various books about warfare until 1130, then eats some bread with butter and drinks more coffee, takes a nap at 1420, plays three more matches of chess, sometimes lasting until darkness. He goes to bed at sunset.

 

You have been watching him for a week or so to make sure nobody will be present when you take him down, and while he’s drinking his thirteenth cup of thin, cold coffee, you realize nobody will come. Not today, or yesterday, or tomorrow. It means less effort. You walk in a day after this realization. Slowly you move towards the kitchen, the target being busy with the water boiler.

 

You enter the kitchen.

 

The target moves around, strangely, you should have shot it by now.

 

“кто это?”, the target asks, and his eyes widen as he – as it – as the target realizes you have a gun pointed straight at its head.

 

You should have shot by now.

 

„Вы создали меня,“ you think.

 

Your vocal cords twist themselves until they strangle you from within and grow all over your body, covering up all the metal and tearing at you until finally you are freed from your body.

 

A loud shot fires off, echoing through your mind.

 

The target falls to the ground, and it seems slowed down, like when –

 

You shoot two more times just to fill the silence.

 

There’s a movement behind you.

 

For a very disconnected second you think the chess figures are rising to avenge their owner. (It would not make much of a surprise: you have seen stranger things come to life.)

 

The white king stands in the door, on his face, mirroring you, incredible –

This is the first time: Ire.

 

 

X

 

The white king crumbles. You watch him unfold.

 

_(When the round shield falls, he is still a circle, a logical construct ending where it began. He is all soft now, the angry mask has dropped from his face. You wonder if he always is so: incredibly sincere. You – wish you knew if he was like this. In a former life, maybe.)_

The white king without his defense turns out to be a pawn.

 

You look down a body that is attached to a non-existent mind. It is pitch black. You wish you could make out which piece you are supposed to be.

 

The white pawn opens his mouth: nothing comes out. He has found you, you suppose.

You open your mouth: nothing comes out. You choke on your words.

 

“Please come –“, he says and his voice trails off to a distant shore where you make sense.

 

Finally, you find your vocal cords. They must have hidden inside you because they were scared what you would do to them.

 

For some reason, the thought of hurting them is incredibly unbearable. You test them out a bit. They have rebuilt a thousand times, are weak, hardly breathing, and you don’t know if this is the beginning or the end.

 

“Why?”

 

Your voice sounds like it hasn’t been used in a century, which, come to think of it, is closer to the truth than it should be.

 

He takes a small step towards you. You flinch back.

 

“Because if you don’t, you will die in some rathole between here and nowhere, either by starvation or by yourself, and you will not know who or what you are, and you will never have had the chance to find out.”

 

There the white king is, again.

 

Your body turns a darker shade of black, and white pain numbs your mind. This makes sense: you are a _lovac._

“You don’t have to run”, he whispers, and it echoes in your mind for hours.

 

When you look at him, he smiles. That’s what you have learned in the past year: sometimes, people smile because they experience joy.

 

He doesn’t.

 

“Stop lying,” you say, exasperated from being unreachable.

 

His smile is forced to a stop. He takes a step towards you.

 

You do not flinch. You control. You are in charge of everything that happens, reflexes faster than light and shadow and time. You do not exist and as such, cannot be destroyed.

 

But he comes closer and you can feel the heat expanding: white pain turns out to be fire, after all, and you finally see: all this time, you were running, but you weren’t _changing_. You do not exist and as such, cannot be destroyed: but what if, _what if_ you were required to be destroyed in order to be created?

 

He: is close to capturing you.

You: are finally going up in flames. Dry wood burning away, away.

 

_Phoenix from the ashes._

_White king captures black bishop._

This is the first time: joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All translations are based on Google Translator. If (and I assume so) they are wrong, please notify me - I'll be forever thankful for pointing out any mistakes on my side. Thank you!
> 
> so, according to google Translator:
> 
> кто это - Who is it?  
> Вы создали меня - You created me.  
> lovac - according to Wikipedia, this is the chess piece bishop in Southern Slavic languages. It translates to runner or messenger, as it does in my own native language. The metaphor seemed to fit here (better than "bishop" anyways).
> 
> \--  
> this was an unplanned night session at 9pm, i should totally do a thousand things that are useful for my future. take this unedited piece of whatEVER it is;;; i am sorry i am very tired and i am not sure what this is. i hope somebody understands what im trying to say with this (i'm pretty sure i don't). thank you SO much for reading thank you thank you thank you. <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lovers reunited.

XI

 

You are open and bleeding. Wounds, gashed into your side and your skin and your flesh and you realize only more pain will make you know you exist.

 

_You don’t have to run, and worse: you cannot run anymore._

“How do you feel?”

 

You shake your head, don’t answer don’t answer.

 

_Why is he still not replying?_

_We don’t know. He should be conditioned by now._

_Well, he obviously isn’t._

_A slap – and your face burns some more._

_We – we actually tried to –_

_I don’t care. Make him obey, though. He’s no use this way._

“Why are you –”

 

_“Better.”_

_Another slap. Another burn. You have a distant memory of what a face without burning feels like. The memory is not worth pursuing. You nod. You nod. You shoot. You acquire the target. You shoot. You nod. You acquire the target. You aim. You shoot. You shoot. You cease. You fade. You shoot. You nod._

_(Tacet.)_

“- hurting yourself, I – don’t _do_ that, I cannot –”

You begin to understand he is there, too. Not in your head, but in the outer world. Oh what a loud world it is, out there. You shut it out. Better. Better. Better.

 

When he touches your arm, you go up in flames.

 

“Can I –”, and he is pleading for your allowance now, pleading to stay and not move, and you agree: remaining in this exact position might save you both from certain oblivion. You nod.

 

He stays. His fingers don’t. They trail a particularly long scar on your arm, reaching your shoulder at last.

 

“Did you –?”, he asks and his voice breaks as he leans back against the wall.

 

And the strange thing is: You don’t know. You don’t know whether someone else lashed your arm open or you did it yourself. It’s the price that comes with constant reconstruction. But you refuse to let this knowledge settle, in fact you refuse to let it be true. You demand existence, and nothing less.

 

“Why did you come here?”, he finally asks, and this time his question will not remain unanswered.

 

_I is a one-letter word and constitutes existence itself._

“I was – made by him,” you whisper and now you understand that even though _he_ created you, you have a right to _be_ because you _wiped out his existence in exchange for yours._

The realization hits you so hard that you crawl backwards until you hit the wall. He sits beside you now, not touching you anymore, but being so close he could anytime.

 

(Remarkable: even though _he_ created you, _you_ are the subject and _he_ is the object. You were made, and now you are going out of passivity, you are beginning to exist and it is a fucking shame everyone thought of the danger of a soldier called James Buchanan Barnes coming back, and nobody thought of a new soul being created and creating itself in the process. You are shaping _yourself_ right now.)

 

He slides closer again, and the both of you are not comfortable with what is happening at all, this is strange and disgusting and too warm for you.

(But you have to start somewhere.)

 

Seventy years and a few continents fast forward and you are here beside him: surrendering for the first time. Your defense is down. And in all honesty, it has been since he first saw you and you saw him, and in his eyes you saw reflected your helplessness and your screams, and he washed it all away.

 

Blue takes you in. The flames are gone. No more white pain, or red gashing wounds. Blue drowns you and you let it in.

 

And he waits and waits until you stop shivering and your nerves calm and you fall back and back, his hand keeping you from tumbling and tripping away, keeping you on the quiet side of everything, and you realize you are close to overstimulus, but not quite there yet, and the only thin line between you and madness is his finger trailing a circle on your back. And he waits and waits, and sits beside you and calms you and pulls you back from certain craziness and the loss of your mind. After a million moments you are reminded of another touch: all too long ago, and it has faded and only the remains of the remains of a memory are imprinted on the inside of your head, flaking off at this very moment. But you are entirely sure it was him back then too, drawing circles on your back, first with his finger and when your mind was about to burst, he retraced them with his mouth, burning whiteness into your body and leaving eternal scars you were sure to carry proudly on your way.

But they have been covered up by others and by yourself, by dripping blood and freezing snow, by gunshots and knife cuts, and you have more scars than you can count, and the person that lies underneath is _dead_ now.

You turn around and bring his hand up to your shoulder, allowing him to keep touching you. Because killing yourself over and over again might bring you release, but it will not keep him here, you think, and maybe that’s the best about it all: that he will stay as long as you let him burn you.

 

Coldness makes its way for his delicate hand.

 

This is the first time: Kindness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is, as ever, greatly appreciated. i feel like this is the only place where i can actually let out all my emotions. sorry for - well, for a general piece of associative writing that has no plot whatsoever. thank you SO much for reading.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what happens after the rebirth

XII

>  
> 
> _Franz Schubert, String Quartet No. 14 in D minor “Death and the Maiden”_
> 
> _2 nd Movement: Andante con moto_

 

He, on your side, does not ask any more. You presume it is your turn.

 

“Steve?”

 

He backs off, doesn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, staring wildly at you. His eyes dart from yours back to the wall.

 

“Tell me about summer,” you say with a voice rougher than granite. (You fathom one could probably scratch up a mountain on your vocal cords.)

 

“You used to stay out in summer,” he mutters, “stay out forever because the nights were warm and the bars were packed. And when you would come home, you’d have some girl with you and you would never let her sleep over when I was there, but in all honesty it didn’t make all that much of a difference because the girls always left at what, four in the morning?”

 

He takes a deep breath and cranes his neck.

 

“When we were younger, we played hide-and-seek in the Park, and one time I hid beneath a bush near the reservoir and you ran around the reservoir fifteen times and I thought it was the greatest hiding place because you were so out of breath. And you panicked a bit because you thought I’d fallen into the reservoir and ran around screaming my name…”

 

You want him to go on; you nudge him gently ( _gently_ ). He does not flinch even though he should, instead goes on in the same deep, soothing voice that has haunted your dreams (but you do not dream).

 

“I – me and the boys, we used to go to Coney Island in the summers, sing a bit –”

 

You visibly do not understand, and he almost smiles –

 

“Barbershop quartet,” he explains, you still frown. He bites his lip which is shaking already, the intimacy is unbearable, and you lay out your entire ignorance before him. You are a blank canvas, incredibly irregular. Your surface is blindingly white while your insides are turned up and thrown about, making you the result of a mad nightmare.

 

He starts making weird sounds and it takes you a few seconds to catch up that he is humming a tune.

 

You start making weird sounds and it takes you a few seconds to catch up that you are humming along. For half a note he is visibly startled, but then he starts laughing, laughing until his entire body shakes and at last he leans back once more, and you look at him and your body feels disconnected for you are not sure how to understand him at all:

 

“You used to hate this song,” he says, staring at his hands as if he didn’t bear looking up at you.

 

Your right index finger lightly traces his leg. You begin to understand how touch functions. And how you do not. He watches you, keeps still as if he was watching a bird on a fence, slowly approaching, but always so heedful for too many of his kind have died for letting down their defense.

 

“You saved my life in Israel,” he says below his breath.

 

That is a fact.

 

“I never thanked you,” he continues.

 

What are courtesies in a freezing flat in the middle of Russia, you want to ask, but before you can he leans over and closes his eyes; and so do you; and you are so young, oh so young and _desperate_ to learn, and see, and become. And from the flames you have risen for a new day has begun: you used to know the word _soldier_ in eighteen languages and like a dog they used to hit you until you retreated into your corner and did everything you could to stay alive, and they may call it obedience, and that was all it was, conforming perfectly until they stop hitting you, whimpering and growling for want of better means of expression. What they never taught you is this connectedness, the last thing you would have expected from him and from _yourself_ , after all you would follow him to the end (hell, you have) and you would go further if he needs you to, and so would he (hell, he has), and this is the first time: Loyalty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry for...three months of absence; honestly i cannot even explain it, i just had a lot going on. i am sorry anyways.  
> <3 feedback + reading is greatly appreciated <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw Age of Ultron, it's amazing, and it sort of made sense to include the events a bit - that being said, this chapter includes a heavy spoiler for the movie!!
> 
> feedback is, as ever, greatly appreciated.

XIII

 

_W. A. Mozart, Requiem in D Minor, Introitus: Requiem Aeternam_

_Vladimir_ _: We’ll come back tomorrow._

 _Estragon_ _: And then the day after tomorrow._

* * *

 

 

Both of you have spent too much time in the cold to be bothered by a bit of frost forming on the window pane. But he gets unresty; twitching, his fingers tap on your leg, asking you to finally get on with it.

“Why are you here?”, you ask faintly (remember, your newborn vocal cords need to be handled gently for they may rip apart any second now, leaving you speechless for yet another century).

You know he won’t lie this time. There are no lies left to tell for the both of you.

“Because I need you to come back,” he answers. Oh so sincerely. By which he means: he wants you to come back. Both of you, circling each other, incompletes, drowning in the waves the world has chosen to inflict upon you. The prices you would pay to regain composure in the shattered mirror pieces.

“I will not,” you say. By which you mean: You cannot.

And the words inside your head battle each other to get out first, and tangle your tongue, and as you are swirling amongst them, you try to focus on the one steady thing in the room, the house, the world.

 

“I will leave again.”

 

This hits him visibly. (Wasn’t it obvious, though.)

You wonder whether you have ever thought about leaving before – but of course you have. Countless times. Pulling the trigger in the opposite direction is not that complicated. You would have had enough guns, you would have been far away from them enough times. You even tried, once, for you were (are) a coward and a runaway, and when your stomach opened up and spit blood everywhere on the carpet and you collapsed, you knew you were going away to a better place, and you woke up back at the devil’s hiding place.

 

You expect him to plead, to surrender, to leave you behind. He, however, catches you off guard.

 

“If you go, I will come with you.”

 

“What for?” (Unspoken: _you have something left here_.)

 

He breathes in deeply, and out slowly. You feel his breath hush over your chest. He does not look at you now, and you are grateful for it.

 

“I won’t lose you again.”

 

It’s like there’s a switch turned on in your brain. Your reflexes pass you by easily, and before you have any idea what is even going on, your hands are on his neck: and unusually, this time he is not choking.

 

A second later you’re catching up. You’re not trying to kill him, that much is obvious, so what the hell are your hands doing?

 

It’s like there’s a switch turned on in his brain. You give him your weaknesses, he gives you his. It just so occurs that the two of you happen to be each other’s.

 

And he tells you about the in-betweens.

 

_A song from far away, you do not remember the harmonies, even though they’re easy, because they’re easy._

_(would Brooklyn be worth crossing the Atlantic?)_

 

He goes back with you, all across Europe. You would like to know what keeps him from taking you across the ocean. You suppose he would not tell you if you asked, because he himself cannot name the fear that is building up behind his eyes every time he looks at you (and sadness covers what lies beyond, and what you would rather never talk about). You stay in cheap hotels, where fat truck drivers eye you suspiciously and you have to control yourself intensely to stop yourself from snapping their necks. Once or twice, you do. Let the bodies lie in backyards. Make them bleed, sometimes, let the blood run over your knuckles. Makes you feel less of a jigsaw puzzle. He pretends not to see it. But of course, late at night, when you lick your wounds like a stray dog kicked from countless towns, he asks how you feel, and he wants to ask why you still break necks out of a habit.

Here’s what you would reply: It’s a strictly defined task. It makes sense.

 

You come back to him, countless times. Every night you lie awake, curled up at the bottom of his bed. Stray dog. Whimpering. Disconnected from nature. You will march again, you know. So will he.

 

Another rainy evening, a motel outside Bordeaux, it’s getting warm again, if you are not mistaken, it’s May, and sometimes by night you crawl over and pull yourself up and bury your right hand in his neck, and you push him away when you realize what you are doing, and soon the sun will rise and you will continue, continue to be, if nothing else.

 

You light a cigarette.

 

“What happened in Sokovia?”, you ask, turning to the window.

 

And he knows you know what happened, really. He knows you’re not asking about the mission.

 

“We lost a – team member.”

 

His voice never cracks anymore, why is that? It used to. Back, before you became what you are. You think. You’re not sure.

 

“Who?”, you ask, genuinely curious.

 

“His name was Pietro,” he says, slowly, dragging out each word. He’s waiting for you.

 

And you turn back to him again, your nerves shooting up, reacting, neurons pushing forward as the only possible explanation emerges from deep down in your fractioned memory.

 

“Pietro Maximoff,” you state, and for a split second your body tenses up and it’s like the first time when –

 

But –

 

“Impossible,” you whisper – because it should be.

 

This is the first time: Mourning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote in the beginning from Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".
> 
> Quote ("would Brooklyn be worth crossing the Atlantic?") from Woodkid's "Brooklyn".


	9. Chapter 9

XIV

 

_Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Queen of Spades_

_Act III, Scene 6 – Liza’s Aria: Ah istomilas ya gorem_

\--

 

_Did you know Pietro Maximoff?_

_No._

_Have you met him?_

_Once. –_ correcting yourself _– Twice._

_When and where? –_

He (Steve) looks at you. Evidently waiting. Encouragingly smiling, running a hand through his hair, still damp from the shower. It will dry, what with the sun coming out today. In a few minutes’ time, he will button up his shirt, put on his trousers and his shoes, rub his face one more time before he steps out. But first, you have to reply.

 

His lopsided smile fades the longer you fight your own mind. Until it wins.

 

“I met him in Sokovia. Eight or nine years ago. He was seventeen. They’d brought him back from – well, he’d got lost somewhere in Hungary, and –”

 

It’s weird how this comes to you naturally, telling this story. As if you had waited for it.

 

“I was there because I was supposed to kill a senator, I think. Fuelling the rebels. I never worked with anyone else, only on my own. So they told him and – his sister not to interfere. They were still in training at the time. He followed me, though. Kept asking me if he could watch, learn, see how it’s done, really. He was too young. I – I don’t remember what happened then – when I completed the mission.”

 

He looks up at you and nods slowly, but doesn’t say anything. Wants you to go on.

 

You smoke up half of the cigarette before you continue hesitantly.

 

“The second time was in Moscow. That was five years ago, before you –“

 

You glance at him, almost nervously. He does not twitch this time.

 

“He wasn’t ready. They sent him and – her out for some deserters, but it was obvious that they were not working – together – her visions overcame her, I was sent to complete the mission and bring them back – unharmed, I found them –“

 

As you try to remember, the words spill out from your mouth and this story is not yours, or Pietro’s, it is the story of _why_ , and _where_ , and _what for_ , and the answer is nowhere to be found but in the words themselves.

 

“- found them in a street corner they’d backed up to, he was holding her, and she was wounded, and he told me to leave them on their own, but I had my mission, so -“

 

You crumble the scarce rest of the cigarette in your left hand, a move you have gotten used to. As the dust slowly sinks towards the ground, you clear your throat and repeat:

 

“They were too young. They were sent because th- because Hydra knew they would not finish the mission. I brought them back. She – I don’t remember what happened then, so I think she compromised me.”

 

You laugh once, quietly. “That’s it,” you finish, looking away from him. “Never saw them again.”

 

You turn back to Steve. His eyes search the ground for some halt. A hopeless undertaking.

 

“She’s staying with us. Is going to,” he says at last and you can feel the uncertainty in all his movements. This is a world he knows, this is a world he is getting used to.

 

“He was still in training,” you repeat, because you do not understand. A waste of material, really. Doesn’t make sense.

 

“So were you,” he answers, and when you look very closely, there are lines around his eyes that never were there before.

 

There are many things you do not tell him at all, like the fact that sometimes you still try to rip your stomach open, to see if the worms that have eaten their way through it are still alive or already rotting like the rest of you.

There are many things you tell him over and over again, like the fact that you cannot understand who he is, that sometimes you are not even sure _if_ he is – the world is a window to you, and on the other side grenades are falling and a sharp North wind blows.

 

The English language is never enough to say any of the things eating up your mind. You try Russian, it doesn’t suffice either. You recoil, often, because the only language you can speak is the one you switch into late at night, a strange dialect of the violence you were taught – when the sun is almost rising, you crawl upon him and give yourself over to absolute capitulation. It’s a battle both of you lose.

 

This is the first time: Need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is all i have to give -
> 
> thanks for reading


	10. Chapter 10

 XV

 

_Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Lieder ohne Worte_

_Book 2 (Op. 30), No. 6_

_I wanted,_

_I always wanted,_

_I always wanted,_

_to return_

_to the body_

_where I was born._

You are small this time, stretching on the tips of your toes so he can finally reach onto the cupboard where a huge jar filled to the brim with cookies stands dangerously close to the edge, and the smell of chocolate drives you to do reckless things, and you know if your mother came home seeing you giving him a leg up, you’d probably get no cookies for a month.

 

But your mother is at work, and her shift will take another three hours, and the overpowering smell of chocolate and sweet cookie dough is a strong motivator.

 

“Can you reach it?”, you ask, but he shakes his head. “Not – quite,” he growls, teeth pressed together, breathing heavily. You worry if it’s his asthma. You know he wouldn’t tell you if it was.

 

You push him up one or two inches, and he reaches up a little more, but your hands are shaking now and you lean onto the counter so you don’t have to carry all the weight. Suddenly, your left hand slips. He almost crashes against the cupboard, but catches himself. “Damn,” you swear, and add “sorry.” Both of you are breathing heavily by now and you just hope he isn’t going to fall back now.

 

“’s alright,” he coughs, and now you’re really worried his asthma is going to hit. “Lemme try it,” you say and try to sound not too motherly. Of course he still hears it.

 

“No, I _can_ do this, Buck, just –“

 

Your hand slips again. A big thump that sounds suspiciously much like a head crashing against wood is followed by a crash, you suck in air sharply and wonder briefly why your hand doesn’t hurt before you realize he has fallen onto you and – a hundred little crashes later – you think the floor is shattering but after another blink you see it’s only the jar broken into a million pieces –

 

The world has stopped turning, you are convinced.

 

You turn your head to the left. (It hurts, but no more than lying still.)

 

Your arm is covered in blood. Blue blood. (Isn’t blood supposed to be red? Isn’t your blood red?)

 

Blue blue blood. Trickling down your arm and forming words on your skin. You’d like to read the words but they are upside down from your point of view. You are surprised to find out the blood-ink comes from only one wound. A clean, concise cut at exactly the meeting point of your shoulder and your torso. You are even more surprised to find out the cut goes all the way round your arm, as if someone had decided to cut off your entire arm. A steady blue blood-ink stream runs down from there up to your knuckles and then trickles onto the ground where a puddle has already formed, soaking Steve’s shirt as he’s lying across your torso.

 

You try to move your hand. Nothing happens. Blood-ink keeps trickling.

 

“Steve?”, you ask with a rather broken voice (god, please don’t let it be your vocal cords again).

 

Steve does not say a word. You try to roll over. Suddenly, a sharp pain shoots up your arm and straight into your head. White pain blurs your vision. _Fuck._

And you look to your left, and in horror you see your arm detach itself, and your nerves scream as they are torn apart, and you might scream too, you don’t know for sure, and you are sure this is not the correct ending, this is not the right story, and your memories mix up, and you’re back in the snow, and Steve is gone, and you are cold and dying and you wish you _would die_ , actually, it would spare you an entire lifetime of hate, too much hate for a single person, too much hate for a single life, too much hate for you to live, and anyways it doesn’t matter now he’s gone, and _still_ your arm is cutting itself off –

 

“Make it come back,” you whisper, exhausted from speaking. The words are draining from you faster every second now.

 

Sometimes, when the world was a shattered mirror image of red and black, you wished there were no words left forever; you wished the languages that tangled in your mind would surrender to the omnipresent pain. You wished you would never have to use your vocal cords again. You wished to lose all that connected you to humanity, still.

 

And then you did. And then you fell. And then you never returned. And then, somehow, you landed here, in a wasteland between the boy reaching for the cookie jar and the asset cutting throats without looking twice.

 

Blood-ink (Ink-blood) spatters onto the floor from the place where your arm once was. The stump pumps on.

 

The heart is a machine. Nothing different from a silver metal one. You might have believed this, once.

 

All your blood has left your body. You are alone now and the glass shards cut your body sharply – and, lying on the floor of a room, lit too brightly, you distinctly remember softer light, and warmer colors, and it might come back to you if only you could _concentrate_ –

 

But the light here is sharp and white and burns your eyes if you look into it for too long. And the voice here is sharp and dark and commands you to get up and you try to grasp back once more, into a world where a soft body was lying on top of yours, breathing quietly along with your longs, and the sunlight hit your face through a dusty window and everything was in accordance with everything else –

_getupgetupgetup_

And he’s stepping on your face now and your mind swishes and is defined by pain again. (Later, you won’t remember this, and the sunlight will hit your face for the first time ever, and he will say a name you will not remember and nothing will _be_ except for sunlight.)

 

Your nose cracks and if you felt pain it would shoot up your face now. Your nose is probably broken. You don’t care. Machines break. (The heart is a machine.)

 

You turn around and put some weight onto your left leg, scrambling to get up before the next punch.

 

It hits right between your eyes.

 

Bright light turns to darkness. You punch back while your sight blurs to infinity, and you hit back and back and back and back, and you drag him close and pull out your knife, ramming it right between his third and fourth rib, and he coughs and falls back and almost slips from the knife except you hold his back and pull him towards you and his head and neck fall back.

 

_This: A blonde girl, not twenty yet, laughs at you as you spin her. She lets herself fall back, you catch her and she bows forward again, giggling as your hands meet behind her back and she strokes your cheek when the next song starts playing, whispering “just once more”. Her eyes are green, but maybe blue. Yeah. Blue. You spin her again, she is giddy with joy and probably wine, and you want to kiss her, maybe will, later this evening, when you go home together, her blouse is all wrinkled by now, and she jokes about it, too, a real catch, this dame, I tell you, Stevie. But how can you dance with only one arm?_

“You can’t –“, he sputters out along with some blood and you are taken by surprise when he takes out a gun, what the _hell_.

 

You push the knife deeper by acquired reflex and twist it. He chokes again, and then he stumbles forward for one last time and you let yourself fall back –

 

A warm body lying across yours –

 

A warm body lying across yours, your blood trickling onto the –

 

floor –

 

But then, of course, all of these are memories, and by now you are fed up of memories swishing into each other and compromising, you, the outer world, all that is.

 

“What if?”, you ask him when the two of you go back.

 

What if – what?, he questions back.

 

“What if I hadn’t died?”, you inquire.

 

And before he can deny it, you tell him:

“The other shore is still there.”

 

Because you still believe it is, somewhere. It could have shifted, been washed over and maybe it is soaked in blood and memories, but it must be, must still be there, because how else could you have been alive in this world?

 

This is the first time: Originality.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote in the beginning from Allen Ginsberg's "Song".
> 
> hi - yeah, I'm still writing this, apparently.
> 
> Sorry for the lack of updates, between university, family, and, then, moving, I found myself rather stressed. I promise to try to update more frequently, though.
> 
> As ever, thanks for reading, and feedback of any kind is always appreciated.  
> Much love to you xx

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Only Revolutions".
> 
> Quote in the beginning from "How I Won The War".


End file.
